Beat Fatigue and Get Energized! | Ashok Gupta | Gupta Program |

Hello and a warm, warm welcome to our Facebook Live today on beating fatigue and getting energized. I'm so glad that you could be with me today to share in this experience. And I hope that by the end of today's Facebook Live, you've got some practical tips on how you can understand where your fatigue is coming from, how you can then put some practical things into practice straight away on day one to help relieve you of some of these symptoms. And we'll be looking at just not only day to day fatigue that most people experience, but also clinical fatigue where people actually it has an impact on their daily lives right through to things like me and chronic fatigue syndrome where it has a severe effect and what the relation is between those different types of fatigue. Okay, good. Well, it's wonderful that you're joining me today and I know some of you are tuning in from all around the world. We often have people from America, from Europe, Australasia, and it's fantastic that you can make the time to be here. And I'm very grateful. What we'll be doing is we'll be spending 20 to 30 minutes in our Facebook Live here where I'll be talking about some of the practical ways you can get more energy, reduce fatigue. And then in half an hour's time, we will end this particular Facebook Live and we will start another one where there's a Q and A so you can actually ask me questions and make this practically relevant for your personal life. Good. Well, just a bit of background to myself. So my name is Ashok Gupta and I've been running a clinic treating various fatigue related conditions for 20 years now. And it's been my lifelong quest to really help people. And I actually suffered from the condition myself. Maine Chronic fatigue Syndrome. I had it for a number of years and I did lots of medical research into what causes the condition. I managed to get myself 100% better. And then I opened up a clinic to help others with me. Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and various other bodily sensitivities like mold and chemical sensitivities. But I also at my clinic have treated many, many people with day to day fatigue. So they wouldn't describe themselves as having chronic fatigue, but certainly it's impacting on their lifestyle and their ability to function correctly. And it's been so intriguing for me to do the scientific research to understand, well, what actually is fatigue, what causes a lack of energy. Now, obviously it's important to say that you see your doctor or your medical practitioner, your nurse, your physician to make sure that you rule out other causes of fatigue, because actually many different very important conditions actually have fatigue as one of their symptoms. So it's important that you rule out other sources of fatigue before you kind of embark on this journey of self help in that regard. And of course, you know, the way that the medical profession looks at the body is very much in a reductionist philosophy. So if you go to a hospital, within the hospital there will be the, you know, the muscle department, the neurology department, the, you know, endocrinology department. They will all be separate departments. And it's very much imagining the body is like a car. And so things go wrong over here and we go and fix that, and things go wrong over here and we go and fix that and we have different departments dealing with different parts of the car. So looking at the body very much from a very mechanical point of view, but the more kind of Eastern philosophies are about looking at the holistic view, our bodies and our nervous system as one functioning system, rather than separate individual systems that may or may not go wrong. I mean, I remember when I was younger and I was thinking about tiredness and fatigue and thinking, I need more energy to be able to run better, to exercise more. So I used to look at the calorie count on the back of chocolate bars and whatever, and I think, right, I'm going to eat lots of chocolate and then I'll have more energy. So from a scientific point of view, food, that is the calories that we consume, plus oxygen, creates a chemical reaction which equals energy, and that supplies energy into our cells, into our bodies. So from that very simple fact, we would assume that the more calories we eat, then the more energy that we're going to have, just like filling up a car with petrol. And that gives us energy, right? We're ready to go. But of course, we can also have a meal where we eat lots and lots of food, consume lots and lots of calories, but our energy levels drop and we feel really tired after eating a big meal. So actually it's not about the calories we consume, it's not about even necessarily the types of food that we consume. It is about how the body then uses that energy to, and how the energy leaks out of our system. We'll come on to that as we go along. And you might ask, well, what exactly is fatigue? What is energy? You know, I found this fascinating that I've studied kind of medical literature on energy and fatigue, also looked at, you know, even within the area of physics and Quantum physics, what is energy? And you know, in science, there's no agreed to understanding about what energy is as a concept. We know that energy can't be created or destroyed. It has always existed in the universe. But at the same time, it's very difficult to define. And when it comes to the body, it's even more difficult to define. Because what is fatigue? Is it the subjective experience of fatigue? So I feel tired today, right? That means I'm experiencing fatigue. Or is it the inability of the cells to actually produce the ATP, which then goes on to give us energy? Is it the. At a reductionist level is our cells that can't give us energy and therefore we feel exhausted and tired. And I'd love to now express some ideas that haven't really been expressed in the literature that certainly that I've been involved in looking at the different types of fatigue and really diagnosing what's stopping us from feeling energized and positive. Often we feel exhausted and drained and tired. What causes that? Well, at a physical level, we can feel tired from over exhaustion, over exertion. So at a very reductionist level, if we've been working out, if we've been had a very busy day physically, then the muscles and the cells need a period of rejuvenation. And we often know that if we've had a busy day physically, we've done a lot of walking, a lot of exercise, then our sleep is often deeper at night because the sleep system has been triggered effectively to heal and restore the body, the neurotransmitters, the physical elements of fatigue. But often our fatigue is mental or emotional fatigue. So we might have been, say, sitting at our desk all day working. And even though we've hardly physically moved, we can experience that mental fatigue where we can come home and feel exhausted. So it shows us that actually fatigue is not really a physical phenomenon necessarily. It is a mental and emotional phenomenon that then gives us the physical experience of fatigue. Then there's emotional fatigue, which is we may experience anger or sadness or fear. And even though we've not physically exerted ourselves, that can also drain our energy. So the mental emotional fatigue is often as a result of the stimulation of the stress system. So we stimulate our stress system unnecessarily or too far, and that then causes fatigue in the body and reduces our energy levels. So it's about burning energy at the right level. So imagine an incense stick. If we light that incense stick, if the incense burns really, really quickly, then we use up the energy very, very quickly. And that's when we're burning energy too fast and feel exhausted too quickly. But if we burn that incense stick slowly, then we're able to maintain a steady release of energy during the day. So we've all heard of glycemic index and having foods which release energy slowly into the system rather than high sugar foods. That's true not only at a physical level, but also a mental and emotional level. How much are we burning our energy too quickly and therefore causing ourself exhaustion very quickly? And there's also spiritual fatigue. There can be fatigue that often can be down to a deeper depression or a sense of not having a direction in life, or feeling lost in life can also result in fatigue. So fatigue has so many different sources, and we have to diagnose ourselves as to where this fatigue and lack of energy is actually coming from. And, you know, worry. I find with most of my clients, worrying is the number one source of a lack of energy. When we have a background feeling of fear and anxiety about our lives, or we don't feel that we're achieving what we want in life and we're fearful about getting what we want, that often drains our energy. Just one little thought. Worry just drains our energy slightly. So there's not only the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual fatigue, but it's also how we're living our modern lifestyles. So if you think about it, for the vast majority of our evolution, we were living in various villages or on certain plains, fishing villages, where we were living outdoor in nature. We were communing with nature regularly. We didn't have the ongoing stress that we experience in life these days. And we were probably in communities where we felt more connected to the people around us. Suddenly, over the last couple of hundred years, we've gone from an agrarian society to then living in boxes, not getting enough natural light, eating artificial foods and very processed foods that lack the nutrients that we need, not sleeping enough, having bright lights which keep us more awake in the evening. And in the last 10 to 15 years, being glued to this guy, our smartphones, and normally we would engage with our laptops or people around us and then we'd have a break. But now every time we have off time or downtime, we are engaging with a screen again. So we're not allowing our nervous system to rest, to heal and repair, and instead it's on the go, go, go all the time, which I also believe is contributing to more fatigue and more tiredness in the population. And I've mentioned a couple of other things. So screen addiction is draining Our energy. Lack of fresh air and being outdoors in nature draining our energy. Bad diets and processed foods draining our energy. A lack of nutrients in our food draining our energy. The pollution around us that we experience once again is draining our energy. The stress, the mental and emotional stress that we're experiencing, all of these things. Imagine our body's like a bucket. It keeps adding water to that bucket. And when that bucket gets filled up, filled up, filled up, filled up, what it then can no longer handle the stress. It then flows over the side and we get symptoms. And they can be symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, stress. They can be physiological symptoms like irritable bowel syndrome, chest pains, overall pain in the body, and then obviously fatigue and a lack of energy. And those are the day to day symptoms that doctors see time and time again in their offices. And in fact, pain and fatigue are two of the most common complaints that someone goes to see a doctor for. And they're symptoms that we see in so many different conditions. So what do we do about this? Well, if it's mild to moderate, there are lifestyle changes that I call the men's protocol. So the Gupta Program men's protocol, which we'll go through very briefly. Now, if we have moderate fatigue, it could be down to some kind of deficiency. So it's worth checking out and getting your blood work done. In terms of do you have an iron deficiency? Do you have a thyroid challenge? Do you have low levels of vitamin B12 or vitamin D? Vitamin D, Lack of it is common in northern hemispheres and contributes to fatigue or perhaps are you pre diabetic? So are there other reasons why you've got moderate fatigue? And then finally, if you actually have an illness that has come on the back of this, so me, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, that's where that mental and emotional stress combined with some kind of physiological trigger has now triggered a legacy in the brain which has caused ongoing symptoms and ongoing illness. So there's three kind of areas that we'll be covering. One is day to day general fatigue, lack of energy that most people experience. Secondly, where you've got a deficiency and go to see your doctor to get those vitamins checked out. And then thirdly, that's when it's become so severe that it's turned into a physical condition. So that moderate one we've dealt with. So if you have a deficiency, a vitamin deficiency, please do get your blood work checked out by your doctor. Now, if you have a mild deficiency, sorry, a mild sense of fatigue and lack of energy, this can Often be, because a lot of us are living in what I call, or many people call a pro inflammatory state. Now what do I mean by that? Pro inflammatory means that generally our immune system is at a steady state, is at a balanced state. And when a virus or a bacterial infection arrives, our immune system responds and fights off that virus or bacteria or you know, something else that has invaded the physical body. Now, unfortunately, we are now exposed to lots of invaders, that is meaning that the body feels like it's on constant alert. So it's a bit like, you know, car alarms, they often go off even if they've just been, the car has been gently rocked or another car has passed by very fast, car alarm can go off. Or imagine when you're making toast at home and even though there's no fire, the fire alarm, the smoke alarm goes off. So it's like our system is on high alert continually. And when our immune system is on high alert and being triggered unnecessarily, that often drains our energy, drains our ability to feel awake and alert and concentrate. And what is doing that? Well, as I mentioned, it's that lifestyle that we're living which keeps us in that pro inflammatory state. So that sometimes is pollution, but more likely it's a lack of fresh air in nature. It's also due to the impurities that we have in our diet and often a bad sleep that we have at night, so we're not sleeping enough as a civilization. So there's many different reasons for that. And this is often called in Eastern medicine, chi energy or prana, or we might call it life force. Right? And it's that very subjective sense of being alert and awake. So let's say you're in a room and you're feeling good and suddenly there's someone who comes into the room who you know is a very negative person and then you're in that person's company and you haven't worked out, you haven't physically drained your body of energy, but you suddenly feel drained, your life force goes and you feel just drained by being around that person, that negativity. So that is called our life force energy. And when we're not regularly replenishing our life force, then we'll feel that lack of energy. Now what replenishes it? Well, this is what we're talking about, the MEND protocol. M stands for mind and mindfulness and meditation, E stands for exercise and activity, N stands for nighttime routine and sleep, and D stands for diet. Now often what's also draining our energy in terms of the mind is that comparison. Because of social media and the pressures of looking a certain way, being a certain way, showing yourself as a success, we're draining our energy constantly. That comparison, that sense of insecurity. So in terms of the mind, first of all, the quickest and easiest way to replenish our system is through regular meditation. And I know for many people, they hear about meditation and think it's some weird Eastern mysticism that they just think is not for them. I want you to know that meditation is something that's very mainstream now, very simple, doesn't come from any particular religion or spirituality. Scientists have shown that our system is almost designed to meditate and replenish itself. And when people do meditate and they do brain scans, there's all sorts of positive things that are happening in the brain. And a recent Harvard study published in 2015, they followed people, 5,000 people, for a year, seeing how often they use medical facilities or saw a doctor, and then they taught the meditation just 20 minutes a day, and then followed them for another year. And believe it or not, the people who learned meditation nearly halved the amount of time they saw a doctor or a medical practitioner or visited a hospital. Now imagine that. Imagine if I had a pill and we could give it to everybody in the population and it would halve the amount of time people sought medical advice or medical help. It would be the miracle drug of the 21st century. And yet we have it in our hands for free every day. It's just that investment time. We're living in a society where we just want to pop pills to sort out our challenges. But actually, that 20 minutes a day of investment in your health, even if it's just 10 minutes to start off with, is so worthwhile. And we have a free, not for profit app called the Meaning of Life Experiment. You can go to Google Play Store or App Store, type in Meaning of Life Experiment and you can download the app or you can do it on our website, TheMeaningOfLife TV. So that's TheMeaningOfLife TV. You can find links to the app and also you can listen to all of our meditations online for free. So the first m is mind making sure that we're meditating regularly and looking after our minds. So reducing our stress levels, reducing our anxiety, reducing our worry about the future or anger at the past. And in the Meaning of Life Experiment, which obviously has those meditations, there's lots of audio exercises that you can use to support your mental health. And there's lots of videos on There that when people go through those videos, that 30 day experiments, they find that they feel happier, more energetic and better in general. So I'd love for you to have a look at the meaning of life Experiment E stands for exercise. So physical activity. We are designed as human beings to move and be involved in either some kind of cardio workout or resistance training, something that actually trains the nervous system, increases our oxygen intake, increases our circulation and we just generally feel good as a result. So once Again, they say 20 to 30 minutes of mild to moderate activity four or five times a week. And that is not just walking, but physical exertion. So fast walking, where you're out of breath, you know, we're so obsessed with this 10,000 steps thing. And did you know there's no clinical evidence that just walking 10,000 steps is the secret to health and well being and longevity. It's not about 10,000 steps, it's about getting yourself out of breath. So trying to walk 5,000 steps for three hours, sorry, 10,000 steps for three hours is not as powerful. 20 minutes where you've actually got out of breath. A fast vigorous walk is far more powerful. And look at the breathing. One of the sources of a lack of energy is not enough oxygen going into the system. So breathing exercises, not just meditation, but breathing exercises, long deep meditations will be also breathe and breathe more from the stomach rather than up here. And physical exercise helps us get more oxygen into the system. So M for mind, regular meditation, looking after our mental and emotional health. E is for exercise, so that 20 to 30 minutes few times a week. Thirdly N stands for nighttime routine. Now because of these little addictive devices, we're often stimulated into the evenings. And when we're engage with a tablet or a mobile phone, we're not allowing our system to calm down. So it's very important that we reduce our exposure to close up screens in those last few hours before we go to sleep and install a blue light filter. Because blue light has been clinically shown to keep us more awake at night and have less deep sleep. So we want to turn off that. So on iOS there is a function called night shift where you can reduce the blue light between certain hours. And it's also a similar function for Android devices as well. And in the evenings we want to have that wind down. You know, if we've got toddlers or small children at home, we always say to them, right, time to wind down. And that also is important for us as adults to make sure that we're calming our nervous system, ready for nice deep sleep. So reducing the amount of work that we do into the evening. A lack of sleep. Most of us are not getting enough sleep. We want to get at least seven and a half to eight hours of good solid sleep to really be functioning at our best. And they know that even people who say, oh, I just need four or five hours over the medium to longer term, it impacts on their health and their wellbeing and eventually they have to catch up with it at some point. So making sure you get that minimum 7.5 hours of proper sleep, having a cooler room at night is useful. And something that really helps our sleep rhythms is morning exposure to daylight. So in studies they found one of the ways to reset the sleep system is as soon as you wake up is to have 15 to 20 minutes of being in bright daylight. So perhaps that's when you do your cardio exercise or your brisk walk, or you sit next to a window and allow all that natural light to penetrate your eyes. So getting bright light in the morning is very, very powerful. So that's N for nighttime routine and then finally D for diet. Heavy foods will drain our energy. So dairy, gluten, alcohol. This is the controversial bit because there's lots of competing ideas about what is heavy foods, but generally those refined flours, those sugars, those heavy oils and yes, alcohol, gluten, dairy, processed foods. I believe a lot of these foods, which are modern introductions to our lifestyle, slightly drain our energy. We can have them, but they're not good for us. And instead we want to be having more fresh fruits and vegetables. Yeah, more whole grains, oats, perhaps rice, nuts and seeds, fish, more pulses. So that means substituting, having less meat and instead having more legumes. So that's dals, lentils, beans, those kinds of things. And studies have shown that when we have more of those foods, our mood increases and gets better. And we also have more energy in our system. So it doesn't necessarily mean becoming vegetarian or vegan. It just means shifting the balance more towards those fresh foods, those whole grain foods, the foods that actually are living foods that give us energy. And they're in that most raw form from when they are picked and farmed to when they are ingested into our system. They are not left decaying somewhere before they are ingested. And other things that can reduce that pro inflammatory state, that idea that our bodies are being stimulated continually, things like turmeric, ginger, vitamin D, our omega oils, all of these things that we hear about in the press, they can all support our ability to have more energy and reduce this over inflammation of the system. And something that's very important that we don't get enough of exposure to sunlight. So the more that we can expose our skin to the sun, they know that it's not just the vitamin D, but there is something about those infrared rays that we are getting, something about being in sunlight that really has that positive impact. And don't we all feel much better when we're exposed to the sun? So that's the mend and some quick wins. If you want to want to overcome fatigue. Day to day fatigue, you're feeling a lack of energy. Number one, invest in that 10 to 20 minutes of meditation every day, ideally twice a day before a meal. And obviously you can use our app for that. Just general daily relaxation exercises I say are so powerful. All the studies show this. So I really, really hope that you'll take the 30 day challenge to do at least 20 minutes of meditation to really re energize your system. Then e for exercise, 20, 30 minutes of some kind of moderate to vigorous activity a few times a week. Nighttime routine. So really extending the time that you're sleeping at night and going to sleep the same time each evening and waking up the same time in the morning. So getting a good sleep hygiene, good sleep routine and making sure that you invest in your sleep. Yeah, we've got Netflix and we've got Facebook and we've got all these distractions. But please really look at how you can extend the time you invest in your sleep. So important. And finally D for diet, just shifting your diet to more of those things that we all know are good for us, but we often lapse and kind of go for those unhealthy choices. Now of course if you find that your fatigue has become more severe, that is it impacting on your day to day life and your ability to function. Then we have a program, an online program called the Gupta Program that helps people with real chronic fatigue issues. Main pain issues in the body, so fibromyalgia, even irritable bowel syndrome, chemical sensitivities. This is where those lifestyle changes and those stresses have overwhelmed the system. The water's filled up the buckets and it's flowing out of the top. And we now found that we have a physical illness that isn't just your day to day fatigue. It's far more powerful in the effect that it has on your life. And if that's the case then please visit our website@guptaprogram.com and that's where you can watch lots of Free videos about what might be causing your condition. And we have a free trial, so you can take a 28 day free trial of our tools and techniques. And this is a brain retraining program that can support your recovery from these chronic conditions. And we have a webinar series starting with myself on the 18th of November. So the Gupta program is this online training course that you sign up to and you receive some materials in the post and you have a series of webinars that you know, we share with you. You get to see me live every week. And it's a whole integrated program of recovery from these conditions. And we've done various small cell studies and we've also done a clinical audit. And generally we found about two thirds of patients who go through the program and commit to it, they achieve an 80 to 100% recovery within a year. And we're raising funds now to do a large scale trial to really prove the power of this particular program. And until we have that large scale trial, we, we also offer a one year money back guarantee on the program so you can use the program, see if it works for you. And if you have no improvement, then after six months, you can return the program for a refund, no questions asked. You've got nothing to lose by giving the Gupta Program a go. And as a special treat today, we're going to be offering a 15% discount for the next 10 days. Okay. And, and that 15% discount, we will share that in the comments section for this particular video. Okay, so if you sign up for the GUPS program in the next 10 days, you'll receive that 15% discount just for being with us here today as a special thank you. Good. Okay, so our team will share what that 15% discount is. And I really hope that this webinar has helped you understand more about what fatigue is, what causes it in our system, and some simple initial steps that we can take to re energize our system to get healthy, to get strong and live that life that we deserve to live. So thank you for watching and look forward to seeing you next time. Now what we're going to do is we're going to do a Q and A on the same Facebook page, on our Gupta Program page. So we're going to log off from this and then if you refresh your page on the Gupta Program Facebook page, we'll be starting a new Facebook Live where we'll take some questions. Thank you and goodbye.